


Neon

by SQ (proteinscollide)



Category: Pop Music RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-23
Updated: 2003-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-23 05:48:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/pseuds/SQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She's always buzzing just like.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neon

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks (and equal amounts of love) to holographis for the read-through and comments, and to bad_elizabeth for the great beta job.

She comes in, noisy and filling the space with her tiny frame. A little too hard on the swinging door and it slams into the tiles behind with a crack, her voice gravelly as she calls out to someone outside. She stops dead when she sees me, meets my glare in the mirror with a start. 

"Oh! I didn't realise there was someone in here already," she burbles. 

I don't say anything. I can feel the breeze from the open door on my face still, and it's cold. I want to - no, need to - wipe away the telltale signs with the back of my hand. But I won't. It'd be admitting that I've been crying in here for the last half-hour. 

She shrugs when she realises I'm not going to respond, and moves to the stalls. She's macking on some gum, I think, a snapping sound that doesn't stop, driving me crazy with its arrhythmic non-pattern. 

"Can you stop that?" I call out after minutes of nothing but sounds that invade my sense of personal space. It's friggin' annoying. And then it stops, the snapping popping wet noises; she emerges a few seconds later, one eyebrow lightly raised as she steps around me to get to the sink. 

"I didn't realise you were still here, it was so quiet," she confesses, carefully soaping her hands, running perfect nails lightly across her palms, white against the tanned gold of her skin everywhere else in sight - shoulders, arms, her expressive face. 

I screw up mine, say "You don't realise a whole lot do you?" condescendingly, a measure of venom I barely feel behind my words. She looks up from her wet hands to stare at me, a little hurt. I don't look away. She's got beautiful blue eyes, and she has as much gunk around them as I have. Well, had. It's a mistake to think about it. I can feel the tears welling up behind our unwavering gaze. She opens her mouth to speak, and it's written all over her face that she's noticed. I don't want her pity. 

"Honey, do you want me to fix your makeup for you?" 

She's not laughing at me, not gawking. She lifts one hand to brush across my eyes, nothing but blankly friendly interest on her face. I jerk away from her touch. "No," I answer shortly, "I can do it myself." I can't really though. I don't carry makeup on me. I wouldn't put it on at all, except the stylist says I have to when we're at award shows and stuff like that, it's part of my image now. 

I wish she'd go, so I can go back to being miserable alone, instead of feeling miserable and cramped up with little Miss Flawless Plastic Pop Tart circa 2001. This bathroom is too small for its ritzy finishings, marble tiles and mirrors and white walls glistening in too bright light. I stare at the ground, hoping she'll finally get the hint. But all I can see are her brown legs long to the ground, the short flash of skirt high up on her thighs. She's got a bit of flesh on her, I think spitefully, but I can't help but trace the curve from below her knees to her ankles in strappy heels. She's got some kind of body glitter on her, and I try not to think about licking the shine from her calves. 

I am so lame. 

I look up again. She's turned away, digging around in a little silk purse that's materialised out of nowhere, a glimpse of tongue wet between her lips as she mutters through the contents. 

"Got it!" she exclaims, and pulls out a little black tube. She waves it in my direction. I must look puzzled on top of annoyed, because she tilts her head to one side, regarding me intently as she says in a softer voice, "Here. It's eyeliner. I think your must have run when you washed your face or something." Or something echoes in my mind, and I nod stiffly because we both know the lie. But it means I can finally reach up and wipe away the dried trace of salt, the pale grey smudge down my face. 

Close to the mirror, peering in so I can't see her anymore. I reach out blindly with one hand for the eyeliner, one hand still rubbing at my cheek. She says, "You've missed a bit," and pushes me gently by one shoulder to face her. She hands me the stick of eyeliner and steps close at the same time, dabbing at a spot on my face with her fingertips, her long nails hard against my skin. Soft and gentle, in circles, and I'm gripping the eyeliner too tightly. She hasn't let go of it. One of my fingers slip, sliding over hers, and she moves to curl them around my hand. 

Her hair smells like coconut and mango, sunshine butter. There's dark strands in the brassy colour, and it's a reminder that's she's not really as golden as she appears, and I remember suddenly what I say I think about her - skanky, fake, inferior. Up close, she has laugh lines around her eyes that the heavy makeup cannot hide. 

"I'm not like you," I whisper into the space between our bodies. She's right there in my face, she can hear me and how I breathe, tight and nervous. 

"I know," she whispers back with a confident smile flickering across her lips. And then she kisses me, soft mouth closing over mine. She tastes of pink, of chemicals and the sour of coloured alcohol; a girlish mystery. 

I don't know where to put my hands. She's small, even in those killer shoes, and to put my arms around her neck seems wrong. Seems that I wanted this. My head is spinning, lack of air as it disappears into those lips, against her tongue candy in mine; I can't move any part of me, could never walk away from this. My hands settle for the small of her back, the side of her waist. Curves and bones under my fingers and it's frightening warmth through the hard sequins, the scratchy embroidered dress. 

She covers the one in her side with a steady hand of her own, pressing our contact past the flare of her hip to the hem so we're skin to skin. Her cheek brushes past my nose as she leans in to nip the edge of my ear. "No, you're nothing like me at all," she breathes, ticklish against the side of my head, puffs into my hair. "See, if you were wearing a slutty dress like this, so short, I would run my fingers under it and up your thighs until I was sliding in you." 

She draws back and I can see the naughty smile on her face, but not for long. I look down with a start when I realise her hand is still on mine, now guiding me under the material of her skirt, higher on the gold surface I know would be there. I watch my hand, a little shaky, pale in contrast, disappear under the delicate green, feel my tips brushing over smooth skin. 

I can't help but gasp as she pulls me further along her, body sliding under mine. She's kissing a line across a cheek, little glances with her full mouth that make me shiver, and I can hear her mumble, almost a giggle, "Oh, you'll just have to settle - ". The rest drowned out in a low keening moan, oh god, hers or mine I can't tell; my fingers against the wet warmth of her, scrabbling against the edge of elastic, slipping through a slit in the light cloth. 

The next minutes are a hurry of new experience: miasma of shallow breathlessness from kissing with intent, the small space condensed to the slick of my palm against her, inside of her. She rolls her hips up, pushing my fingers deeper as I press down frantically, riding her tensed body with a stream of quiet curses echoing. There's sweat highlighting the shimmering dust in the v of her neck, collecting glints in delicious hollows and I burrow my face in unfamiliar lines, panting. I only look at her face once, and I can't keep my eyes on her unabashed pleasure, pure glee; a lidded gaze sly and trained on me. I don't stop moving with the heavy crush of her breasts, my eyes closing, straining for that near-elusive glow, slowly spreading upwards and into a haze. Faintly, I can hear her gasping the last of her orgasm, her head falling limply on the pale tiles behind. 

She catches my eye, head turned to side, sated grin growing. Her eyes are a little unfocussed, and I know it's not imagination, a deceptively sweet edge in her voice when she says to me, "Was I as good as you hoped, Avril, honey?" I open my mouth to retort even though I still feel weak, blood rushing away from the damp between my legs to sharp sensations everywhere else except to my brain, but she's already turned away. She's searching the top of the vanity with her hands and waves of blonde hair fall across her shoulder, obscuring her face. I close my mouth, nothing to say. 

When she faces me once more she's uncapping the eyeliner swiftly, surely; then she's in my face once more, that mouth falling open slightly, now so innocent. One hand to hold my chin steady in a firm grip, the other lightly pulling the makeup, cold and liquid, across the bottom line of my lids. They flutter, fight against the pressure downward, uncomfortable. I'm afraid she'll poke an eye out, but the steady stroke continues. 

"There." She says finally, tip of her tongue slipping from between her lips back into her pink mouth, a little hop backwards to survey her handiwork. A cool rush of air as she moves, blowing her scent past me and away, sweet florals with the cloying musk of sweat and sex and I breathe regret to follow. She tips her head to the side again. A gleam passes over her face for a moment, fleeting but most certainly there, a feeling of success. 

"It's waterproof," she tells me after an awkward pause. I shove my hands into pockets of my pants and wonder if she wants me to thank her for the beauty tip. Somewhere between my mind and my tongue it turns nasty. "Oh wow _thanks_ , advice from you, that's exactly what I need," I hear myself throw down with scorn. 

She doesn't flinch like I thought she would, no hurt glance like before; but a slow measured stare as a smile slides across her features and bares her neat upper row of teeth. "Oh, I thought I'd just mention it, because you might want to look into investing in some. After all, you'll have plenty to cry over the next - hm, half year, tops - when some other bubblegum tart comes along and replaces you. At least I milked several years from this. I've learnt not to cry. But you?" An eyebrow, quirked, a silent and cruel toast to my future in her gleaming blue eyes. She slides an arm, almost comfortingly and all together too familiar, across the flat of my stomach and pinches hard as she brushes past to the door, vicious. She yanks on the door, too hard once more and it bangs against the tiles with a crack again, parting advice spoken stridently into the noise outside, "A wake up call, darling." 

I stay frozen by the marble bench, watching the door swing to and fro, space closing in as the glimpses of one or two disaffected faces are drawn behind the wood. I don't want to give the bitch the satisfaction of rattling me further, but I can feel the last of the hysteria inside my head fighting to be cried out. Out of habit I draw my hand, curled into a fist, deep across the sockets of my eyes to keep it in. When I look up into the mirror, I see a frightened little girl, tired and red-eyed, but this time there's no ugly black smear on my face. I keep rubbing at my eyes then, hard, and my hands come away clean after every stroke. 

I splash some water on my face to calm the flush; her neatly drawn outline still noticeable when I stare at the mirror afterwards, to see my sullen face reflected. The jaded look the little pre-teens want now, not the princess glamour last year or was it the year before that, when she was popular and what they wanted to be. It seems such a long time ago - 15 or 16, busy writing songs and envying success - and yet, suddenly so incredibly short a while. 

I turn away from the mirror and its harsh lights to leave. 

END


End file.
